The Adventures of Hana Wormwood, New Mortal
by AramauFierySecretary
Summary: Hana Wormwood has escaped Hell. Now what is an orphan tiefling to do in this big new mortal world?
1. First Day

Asmodeus had fulfilled his promise and returned them to the mortal plane. But he dropped them in a place that Hana's guardians had not planned on. They were in a forest that Hana heard described as Erneon, but the name meant nothing to her. She should have been worried. She should have panicked that her friends didn't know what to do.

However, Hana could not care less. This was mostly because she could not see.

Bright light hit her corneas, causing tears to spring to her eyes, and she quickly dove under Shiloh with a whimper, her eyes screwed tightly shut. She folded her arms over her head and buried her face in the ground. The grass tickled her nose, but she didn't mind because it smelled nice - far better than the Minauros bogs. But she succeeded in letting no light touch her eyes.

She heard someone kneeling beside her and Shiloh in the grass.

"Hana? Are you okay?" Ivan's voice asked, and she could hear notes of sadness in his voice.

"My eyes hurt…" she moaned, still clamping her eyes shut.

"You've never been in the sunlight, dear. Your eyes will adjust to the brightness soon," Faerthurin's voice coaxed, but Hana shook her head.

"It really hurt, Fae!" the girl cried, scrunching her eyes even tighter to get the pain to go away.

"Please… Hana… try again…" Jeminya croaked weakly from above her. Guiltily and unable to deny her aunt anything, Hana wiggled her way out from under the dog. Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, she opened her eyes, first peering through her eyelashes, then gradually opening them further.

The light still hit her eyes uncomfortably, but it wasn't as bad this time. She poked her head out from under Shiloh and winced at the extra brightness from being out of his shade. Before her were the feet of her guardians and the lovely soft grass she liked so much. Behind them, there was a pool of… water, she assumed. It didn't look murky and green-brown, so she wasn't sure. She leaped between their legs and crashed into the pool of blue.

It _was_ water!

"Ooh, this feels nice. Is all water up here like this? I like the color," she said as she bounced around in the shallow pool. From behind her, Shiloh whined like he wanted to join in, and Amber and Jalerom bit their lips trying not to laugh at Fae's horrified expression.

"Sweetheart, a lot of water is like that, but maybe you shouldn't get so wet since you don't have any other clothes yet? You'll get cold!" she fussed, and Hana looked over at her from where she had been splashing.

All of her friends looked… different. Brighter somehow. _It was probably because of the sunlight like Fae said_, she reasoned to herself. Since Fae seemed really worried, and they were all a little frazzled, Hana heeded Fae's wishes and got out of the pool, shaking herself as she walked upright. The elf gave her a little smile before she went over to a small clearing and began to wave her arms and chant. Hana wasn't too worried because she did something like this when summoning the manor, so she wandered back over to Shiloh and her aunt.

Jeminya's eyes were closed and her face was slack like she was trying to sleep, which Hana thought was a good idea. She reached out to pet Jeminya's hair with her still-wet hand, and her aunt jumped a bit.

"Hana?"

"Yeah, it's me."

Jeminya nodded into the Shiloh-pillow and kept her eyes closed. "Your hand feels cool. Did you enjoy your little swim?"

"Yeah. It's not all full of plants and moss and stuff. It's weird. And it's really bright up here, but my eyes don't hurt as much now."

"I thought that would be the case, dear," the weakened queen chuckled. "Wait until night. I think you'll like it." Hana tilted her head, confused.

"What do you mean? What happens at night? I don't like nighttime," she said, stiffening. Her hand hovered over Arkoth's sword unconsciously.

"We'll be safe tonight, Hana. You don't need to worry so much," Jalerom piped up, his eyes never leaving Faerthurin.

"How do you know?"

"Because of the spell Fae's casting. It's always kept us safe as long as we're inside. It's a little different to the manor, though," he replied, and Hana looked over to where Fae was working. She could see the ground sort of build on itself to form the foundation of a house that looked a bit like her cottage in Minauros. The earth and grass around it seemed to shift to build on itself, and nearby trees extended its branches to twine in with the earth. The walls hardened to look like earthen stones with tree branches covering the crevices as the house climbed higher and higher. The leaves danced across the top of the house and mingled with the ones from the two other trees in the area and solidified to make an impressive but inviting roof. Tree roots sprang up from the ground and wound themselves into a large door while smaller ones broke out of the earth and branches to form windows.

Hana was not in awe as she had been the first time she'd seen Fae work, but she was still impressed by this bit of magic. The manor had been in a portal; this cottage was built before her eyes, and she liked it better. Faerthurin lowered her arms and stopped chanting before turning her gaze back toward the group tiredly.

"I think… we need a nice long rest…" Fae said slowly. Amber didn't even hesitate and barged into the cabin, leaving the door open and motioning to Shiloh with her tail. The dog carrying Jeminya followed eagerly, then Ivan scurried over to join them. Oin took his time filing into the shelter, then Jalerom motioned for Hana to go in. Hesitantly she followed and what she found made her feel relieved.

It was a nicer version of the cottage that she had shared with Arkoth, but only with one room. The beds were still the soft things that Hana wasn't fond of, but the room was sturdy and homey. The floor was stone instead of the infernal carpet, and the table and chairs were much more modest in build, just how she liked it. Hana sniffed around, but the cottage didn't smell like anything familiar, so she just scampered over to one of the bunk beds and leaped onto the top of one. It wasn't as soft as the beds in the manor - in fact, the matresses were much firmer and it turned out they were filled with hay and cloth scraps - so she happily curled up in a ball to sleep, covering her whole body with the warm wool blanket.

As she was drifting off, she heard Faerthurin chuckle, "Out like a light. She really is a child, despite how she acts."

"Yes," Jeminya's croak answered, "but… what will we… do for… her…?"

Hana fell asleep before she could hear the answer.


	2. First Night

Oin snored. So did Amber.

It had never been a problem for Hana before because he had slept on the other side of the manor from them. But hours later she was woken with a start as they somehow snored in sync with one another, causing a loud thunderous noise to echo through the stone-and-wood cottage as well as causing Hana to wake up and fall off the top bunk in her bundle of blanket.

"Ouch…" she moaned before unraveling herself from her swaddling. But when she popped her head out, the room didn't look much different at all. It was just so dark! Except for by the windows.

The little desk under the window on Fae, Jalerom, Jeminya, and Amber's side of the room shone with white light, and Hana hopped over on all fours to look at it. Did Fae have a magic desk that glowed at night? She tapped the writing desk, but nothing felt magical about it. She touched a few of the writing utensils and books on it, but again nothing felt off. Then she looked out the window, and her eyes got huge.

This bright ball of light didn't hurt to look at. It was huge and white with gray spots and a bunch of colors shining brightly around it. There were also little white dots all around it.

Hana absolutely _had_ to go get that ball, so she dashed with little heed to her surroundings out the door and climbed swiftly up the walls of the cottage. She even forgot to be careful not to break the roof because the light was just _so pretty._ She galloped across the roof and leaped off with her arms stretched out towards the orb of light, but she couldn't grab it and plummeted into another pool of water next to the house.

Determined, Hana barreled out of the pool and scaled the walls again. Another running leap, another miss, another belly flop into the pool.

Lather, rinse, repeat a dozen more times before, wet and defeated, she climbed the walls again and just sat on the roof, staring balefully at the ball of light she wanted. It was so big and it looked so close, why couldn't she reach it?

"Hana?! HANA?!" Suddenly she heard Jalerom's voice from down by the door so she peeked her head over the lip of the roof.

"Yeah?" she said, and Jalerom's attention immediately shot upward. His panicked face relaxed before morphing into confusion.

"I thought you'd run off again. What are you doing? Why are you up there?" he asked, his eyebrow slanted upward.

"I was trying to catch the ball," she said, pointing up at the new object of her fascination. His eyes followed where she pointed before his lips curled into his mouth once again in an attempt not to laugh at her earnest naivete.

"H-Hana, that's… you can't catch that. It's the moon, not a ball."

Hana looked back up at the sky and scowled. "It shouldn't be so pretty then." Jalerom let out a cough-chuckle before he too began climbing the wall to join her on the roof. He sat cross-legged while she sat on her haunches like a gargoyle, and both stared upward at the moon.

"Huh. It's got a rainbow around it tonight," he murmured, impressed.

"Rain...bow?"

"Yeah, a rainbow is when the light hits water in the air and makes pretty colors." Jalerom could almost see her eyes cross at his explanation, and smiled gently. "Water isn't just on the ground, it's in the air too. That's how we get rain. So when a lot of light hits the water in the sky, it makes the colors. We call it a rainbow because it usually happens after rain."

"Oh." Hana diverted her attention back to the moon and the rainbow. Then Jalerom noticed her eyes darting elsewhere in the sky, so he looked back. There happened to be a couple of shooting stars passing by.

"Uh… what's going on? The little dots haven't been moving like that before!" She asked nervously, and he could almost see her hackles raising in fear.

"Those are comets, or shooting stars. They move sometimes. The other little dots of light are just normal stars," he explained patiently, and Hana, seeing that he wasn't worried, began to relax again.

"They only come out at night?"

"Actually, they're always up there. The sun is just so bright that we can't see them."

"Oh. I don't like how bright that one is. It hurts my eyes."

"Well, your eyes will adjust. It will take a while; you've spent your whole life in dark murky places. But when they do, you may like what you see," he said, casually looking over at the teen child perched next to him. She kept studying the sky as if she was still planning on how to catch the moon (which had to have been the most adorable thing he'd heard in a long time), and he just shrugged and let her plot.

"Why isn't there a sun or moon in Baator?" Hana asked, not looking at him.

"I don't know. That would be a question for your, uh… The Big Red Machine. He built the place." Hana nodded.

"I don't know why he wouldn't put a moon down there. It's nice."

"Maybe he didn't put one down there _because_ it's nice."

"You're right."

The two of them continue to just look at the sky, the occasional comet streaking by, when Jalerom noticed that Hana's eyes had begun to droop.

"Bedtime, kiddo."

"I don't want to. I want to stay here," she whined, still forcing herself to keep vigilant as if she were worried that the moon was going to run away.

"It'll be up there tomorrow night to, Hana. And Fae would not be happy if she caught us up here." Hana frowned and grumbled as she slowly climbed back down the wall. Jalerom chuckled as he followed and made sure they both got in safely. Once again, he folded his lips into his mouth as he watched her slump over to her blanket, pick it up, look up at the top bunk, then give up and crawl under the bottom bunk holding Rose and Shiloh to sleep.

"Night, Hana," Jalerom whispered loudly, and he saw her tail flick at him as acknowledgement followed shortly by soft little snores, hidden by the loud ones from the dwarf and dragon.

He shook his head and crawled back into the bunk next to Faerthurin. He remembered sitting up late at night to watch the moon himself when he was young, and resolved to only tell Fae about Hana's late-night adventures if she asked.

Which of course she did when she saw Hana under the bed instead of on the top bunk.


	3. First Home

Hana looked behind her at her new home. It was much larger than her home in Minauros, spacious but still homey, wooden, and earthy. She knew she chose this; she had agreed to stay behind so her friends could do what they needed to. After all, there was no way, with Simula in Cania and Jeminya in the diamond, to prove her lineage without a doubt, therefore no one in Directian would believe her when she said that she was technically the next heir to the throne. Even with Faerthurin, Jalerom, Amber, Ivan, and Oin's words claiming she was Simula and Arkoth's daughter, that wouldn't be enough. So she chose to stay behind with Arden for a year until they could come back for her.

She would wait for her family to come and get her. She went through Hell to find her family, so she'd wait however long she had to.

That didn't mean, however, that she wasn't scared of staying. She didn't know these people; she only knew that they knew the others. Did her aunt know them? Did she trust them? They didn't look awful, but she wasn't sure. Things could have changed in the time since Fae and Jalerom knew him. They'd been gone a long time, hadn't they?

Hana didn't want to look at the house anymore so she turned back towards the path back to town. She couldn't see her friends anymore. Shiloh was still at the tree. And…

The horse with wings was staring at her from the vegetable patch.

Hana felt trapped. There was an eerily staring horse, a family she didn't know, and a world she had little knowledge of surrounding her. She wanted Arkoth. She wanted Fae. She wanted Ivan and Amber. She wanted Hubert back, already kicking herself for giving him to Oin, though she knew she was doing something nice for him.

A hand landed on her shoulder, and she shrieked and scurried away on all fours down the path. Instinct told her to run, so she did. A shadow zipped over her head - not that she paid much attention to it - and suddenly the flying horse landed with a resounding thud right in front of her, causing Hana to run into its belly.

"No!" she cried, crawling backwards away from the horse. "Don't hurt me!"

The dark grey steed lowered its head so that its eyes were level with her teary ones. It snorted gently, then tried to take a step toward her. She scrambled back further, whimpering, and the horse suddenly looked sad. It whinnied, still staring at her intently, and took another step. Hana curled into a ball, covering her head in her hands, and began to sob.

She heard the horse come closer to her and braced herself for an attack. She was not prepared for the soft nuzzling and licks she felt against her arms and head. It almost felt like the horse was kissing her. Hana uncurled a little to look up at it, and the horse stared back at her earnestly.

Footsteps approached, and Hana started and curled up into her ball again.

"Hana?" Duvane's voice asked sweetly, "Mama wanted to know if you were okay. You kind of jumped away when she tried to talk to you."

Hana didn't move, but the horse nickered in what sounded like the affirmative. Another set of footsteps came up next to Duvane, and Hana heard the new person kneel on the ground by her head. A large warm hand placed itself on her shoulder, and her sobbing renewed.

"Hana… it will be all right. Fae told me what happened. Your dad, your grandparents, your mother, everything. And… I'm sorry. But we won't hurt you, I promise," the voice of Arden came from outside of her ball.

"I don't know you… I don't know anything here! I know I shouldn't go with them, but being here isn't any better! I should have stayed in Baator! They should have let me take the deal, I don't know anything but Hell!" Hana wept from her little self-made prison on the dirt path. Suddenly, there was a great thump next to her, and she felt the horse pull her into its side with its nose. She didn't really care anymore so she cried into the animal's soft coat while it continued to nuzzle and lick her gently.

"Hana, you shouldn't be in Baator. Your eyes tell me that much," Arden said kindly, "You're safe here. You're wanted here. Your aunt needs you here for when she comes out of the diamond."

"My aunt is scared of me!" Hana wailed, wiping her runny nose on the horse's side. "She has to blindfold herself before I can see her…"

"That doesn't mean she doesn't need you. Besides, her pegasus likes you well enough. He needs you to take care of him for her. Don't you, Starjay?" Arden asked, and the horse - er, pegasus - nuzzled even harder, tickling her side.

"You're my aunt's pegasus?" Hana asked, lifting her head from his fur. He gently smooched her nose and put his muzzle on her forehead.

"He's happy you're home. He's missed Miss Jeminya. Daddy says you look like her," Duvane chimed in from behind her father. Hana wrapped her arms around Starjay's neck and continued to cry, but she let herself go limp enough for Arden to put her on Starjay's back, and the little party of four walked back to the house.

Hana slept in the stable with Starjay that night, never letting go except to eat the lovely stew that Shelter made.


End file.
